Hi Everyone, long time lurker here in desperate need of advice as money management is on the verge of ruining our marriage. We are a youngish married couple expecting our first child. I was raised in an extremely frugal family (by necessity). Before marriage, I had a house and no student debt. My husband on the other hand has approximately $50,000 in student debt and no assets.

My salary is in neighborhood of $80,000 gross and his is in the range of $30,000 gross. He is new to the labour market and this will increase with time. At the beginning of our marriage, I paid the majority of our household expenses and he paid some (minimal) token bills. I became resentful because he was spending every spare cent on stupid things he didn't need (xbox games, fitness equipment, golf clubs, clothes, anything that caught his eye at walmart). We have recently been working on contributing to joint expenses proportional to our income. This is still resulting in me paying more than I did when I was single because we got a dog (that he wanted), he eats a buttload of food, gets 3 showers per day, and has the TV on constantly (even when we are sleeping, which was another hard compromise for me). This is fine, but I want him to understand that the end goal is for him to improve in his career to better contribute to our family.

He currently owes money to me, his parents, and his credit card, yet started a discussion last night about absolutely needing a $300 pair of shoes. This is after we had an argument last week about him buying almost $500 worth of clothes for himself. He got really worked up and pointed out that I bought stuff for myself last week and it isn't fair if I get to buy stuff for myself and he doesn't. The things I bought for "myself": three new bras because my pregnant breasts would no longer fit into my 32A cups, and fabric to make a quilt for our future baby. I also meet all my financial obligations and don't owe anyone money. He backtracked and said he would not buy the shoes until November after he pays back me and his parents. He then completely lost his temper and started yelling about since he has a job he should be able to buy nice things for himself and he is sick of always having to give me his money, and I'm too controlling. The money he "gives" me is to cover his portion of our joint expenses, which is significantly less than my portion. He acts like he his handing me over his hard earned cash which I then go blow on cocaine and booze, rather than contributing to our bills. (That was a joke, I don't do drugs). He then backtracked again saying he was only window shopping for the shoes, and he needs to window shop for things like cars and clothes and expensive golf equipment to make him feel better about his low salary and poor financial lot in life, which he thinks is everyone's fault but his own. His $50k student loan - he truly believes this is the fault of the banks and society, not him choosing to take out excessive loans to go to school out of town and not working to help pay for school the whole time he was there.

His mother is 100% the architect of this problem and continues to propagate it. He will probably tell her about our argument and how mean and horrible I am thinking he doesn't deserve to buy $300 shoes with his hard earned money. She will then most likely go and buy him the shoes because of course her poor baby needs new shoes for his poor feet. They are not overly well off and I suspect they finance their lifestyle with credit cards. He has told me in the past he thinks it is "normal" to carry a balance on a credit card. I've been trying unsuccesfully to beat this notion out of his head for the last few years. Part of the issue is his feeling of entitlement. He likes to watch youtubers and then feels that he is entitled to own anything and everything they have. He doesn't have a car - he drives one of his parents' cars, and sooks that he wants a brand new SUV and with the two degrees he has, he should be driving a $40,000 SUV. He feels it is beneath him to drive a beater and he can't afford anything else so he has to drive his parents. My first two cars were old beater honda civics that I paid cash for - while making a lot more money than he does now.

Please help. How do I get through to him that we are a team and in this together? That we need to be saving money for the baby, not blowing it on wants. How do I teach him financial responsibility? How do I get him to stop feeling so entitled to material things because people on youtube have them? And how do I communicate this in an effective way? I'm an engineer with horrible communication skills. I deal best in logic and math, not emotions. I can't empathize with his feelings of frustration with his lot in life, or wanting material things to make him feel good about himself, because I don't have those types of feelings. He likes to claim that I don't have any feelings, which isn't true.

Sorry about the rant. I'm feeling very hopeless at the moment that our problems are not fixable.

PS - If I asked my parents, their solution would be to tell him he has to grow up and be more responsible. This won't work because he doesn't understand that there is anything wrong with his opinions.

I am so, so sorry that all of this is happening, especially while you are pregnant. You are probably right in believing that it is not fixable. He will probably not change around these issues. According to your explanation, he has a high level of debt, a low income, and continues spending patterns which will not reduce his debt. He also has personal habits that you do not like (showers too much, eats too much, etc.). Save as much as you can, because you canít expect much help from him with this.

Above and beyond the money, you are decribing a (total?) breakdown in communication. You think he is childish and he thinks you are controlling, both leading to resentment. A marriage counselor would be recommended.

As for the finances, a possible solution to the current resentments: put it all in a pot and create a budget so that you each get a personal spending allowance. Decide together if his debt payments are a joint expense or need to come out of his personal allowance. Perhaps offer to forgive his debt to you as part of the restart. Perhaps work out the transition with the aforementioned counselor.

It does not have to be a literal all in one pot. Most of our wealth is in my husband's retirement accounts, you may also want a 529 for the kid. With this plan, you may even be able to get him to contribute to retirement, at least an IRA.

I feel terrible for you being pregnant and just realizing what a tool he is. You seem to be a very sensible person. I would cut my losses now and leave the marriage as it seems this is a HUGE deal for you. It won't get better.

PS - If I asked my parents, their solution would be to tell him he has to grow up and be more responsible. This won't work because he doesn't understand that there is anything wrong with his opinions.

Based on your version, I would agree with your parents. You seem open to change and compromise to make it work. He does not. If this continues and you want your marriage to "succeed" based on current terms you will basically have to pay for everything and succumb to his preferences.

He might not understand right now but he will be FORCED to understand while paying child support and divorced/separated and living in ??? and paying for his own bills with ???

He, and you and your relationship and future child, will be MUCH better off with hard conversations now. Now matter how dreary it seems, it IS fixable although it will not be easy and is up to both adult parties, not just one well-meaning adult. Whether this requires professional intervention is up to you but is a good idea. Perhaps the hardest part is that you have to realize that if he truly is not willing to change, you cannot stay with this person and they need to realize you are not bluffing. Ultimatums are not ideal but last resorts are last resorts.

Good luck OP and congrats on the pregnancy!

Side note for your husband: Someone is the breadwinner and the other person is not. Quit moping and be happy you aren't the breadwinner making 30k. Get out there and earn all the while appreciating your lucky situation.

Your husband is a spoiled moocher and he won't change. He is replicating his financial relationship with his mother with you. With your pregnancy you are tied to this parasite for the rest of your life. If you divorce, he will ask for half of everything you have and you will have to take on half the debt. He will demand 50 percent custody, child support, and possibly some alimony. If you stay with him, he will be a continual financial drain. Cut him off and he will leave you for another victim and the divorce scenario described will follow.

In your shoes, I would file for divorce and force him to move out of your house that you acquired before the marriage. Assets acquired before the marriage and not co-mingled are not generally subject to division. Get rid of this unfixable problem now, before he drains you dry.

You are lucky that you are not financially dependent on him. He has let you know repeatedly that he does not feel like he is on a team with you and he has told you repeatedly that he does not think saving money for the baby is important. I think you think that if you reason with him or he sees a baby he will suddenly grow up and become responsible. I don't know why you say you are bad with emotions because you are doing all the emotional labor in your relationship.

A book i recommend is "codependent no more." It's a long process to recover from codependency. It will take awhile to accept that your husband isn't going to change. He has no reason to as long as his mother enables him. Please at a minimum see a therapist by yourself.

I'm usually a fan of merging income and expenses but it seems like in this case with him resenting you for paying his share it would work better to keep expenses separately. Obviously things like rent and utilities need to be in one persons name but the rest can be separated out and paid for by that person. He wants to eat a lot? Fine but he needs to eat his food unless he chips in for yours. I know a lot of people make separate expenses work for their households so somebody can likely offer up better examples of how they actually make it work. I feel like you'll resent him more if he continues to spend "your" money versus creating those boundaries in the first place.

I also second the idea for counseling. Sometimes the impartial 3rd party can really help both of you come to an agreement.

Have you actually sat down and made a budget together? Does he know how much your lifestyle costs? Does he know how much you are paying for things, and can you at least agree to try to follow a budget for a set period of time (maybe 3-6 months)? Maybe sign up for YNAB and work on it together.

You seem to have taken on a parental role with him, and you at least have to try to make him your partner in this stuff.

If he can't do it, or won't do it, then you can talk about separating.

Edited to add: I also like the idea of finding a marriage and family therapist.

Personally, as a grown man, I would have to be on the verge of homelessness to take a loan from my parents, use their car on a regular basis, etc. I agree with what you think your parents would say, he's got a kid on the way and he needs to man up. Ask him how nice those $300 shoes are going to look with baby spit-up on them.

Have you always thought this way about his money habits or is it a recent issue now that you're in "nesting" mode? If you never said a word about the way he spent money and all of a sudden are telling him he's being childish about it I could see where there would be some friction. I know when my wife was pregnant with our first I went crazy thinking about saving for college, having another mouth to feed, etc. while she was busy buying tons of stuff "for the nursery" and that lead to some tense discussions.

I will make the assumption that you still have separate finances because you didn't like how he handled his finances. That issue should have been dealt with before you got married. At this point, I would suggest writing down 5 financial goals you have for your family (529 for baby, debt elimination, whatever). Ask him to do the same. Sit down and see how many of your goals are similar. If there's enough there that you're directionally aligned, draft a budget that uses your combined income to handle your day to day expenses while still working towards your goals. Make sure he has some "fun money" he can spend on crap without you judging. You should get the same amount (obviously you can just put what you don't spend in a savings account or whatever). Try that for a few months and see where it gets you. If your goals are not aligned at all, that tells you all you need to know.

From your description, it is not his mother that is the problem. He is an adult and needs to own up to his own behavior.

I have been studying zen buddism and they have a lot of good insights. One is that honest communication about the suffering we are feeling with the one we love, not in the passion of a moment, but when we are calm is necessary. He cant know, fully, how much he is causing you suffering and how much this is worrying you, unless you tell him. If he loves you and realizes your suffering he should be willing to take action. Tell him these situations cause you actual pain, as if you are being actually hurt by them, so it must change. If he is uncaring about the suffering, obviously you need to plan to create boundaries.

You might start by sharing this thread and talking about it. He may also be suffering in ways he is not sharing, such as anxiety over loss of freedom, fear of responsibility for a child, feelings of inadequacy due to income when his fantasy of himself is as a strong provider. Ask him to share his worries and plan mitigations (e.g. like he will still have freedom to do some guy stuff, just frugal freedoms, assure him the income difference does not diminish him in your eyes, etc.).

There is a pinned thread which I think would be a good place to start: How to Convert your SO to MMM in 50 Awesome Steps.

There are a lot of things to work on and it will take a lot of time, patience and persistence. There has been many debates here in the forum of to combine or not combine finances. My DW and I combined on day one. Similar situation, her earnings have always been less than what I make. We worked to combine and build a joint budget lining out our income then subtracting out the fixed expenses. We both then understood how much discretionary spend we had. From here we decided how we spend this to accomplish goals. which reminds me, work to line out goals for each other and family. Maybe work to create a visual so he can "window shop" at the fridge to remind what you guys are working towards. This was my wife's idea. we visualized our 5 year goal/road map. This visual was great as we accomplished many of them and had the satisfaction of crossing out.

So work to understand his desires/expectations for life. For me, I wanted the freedom to do whatever job I want to do. I too enjoy golf, but it is an expensive hobby. One possible way to help make a small change with your DH is to use Golf as an example. Lets say an annual membership to a local public course for a family is $1,500 a season. He will also want to maybe buy a new club or shoes and golf balls. So add $500. So annually you could expect his golf hobby to cost $2K. Doing the simple math of 25x spending. you can take $2K x 25 = 50K needed to cover this hobby in retirement. So you could work with him to see that you can start working towards saving this amount of money. This helped with my DW. She likes to travel so I asked how much do you expect to spend on travel (international) annually. She said about 4K. So I took this by 25 and got to 100K. I told her, this is the number we'll need to be able to travel international every year for life.

One thing to be aware of is avoiding resentment. DW and I did couples counseling and it really helped. These counseling sessions helped ease some of the resentment we both had in our marriage. After this, we had become better at our communication. We still can improve on our communication, but this helped us to get moving forward. Check with your healthcare/employer to see if there is employee assistance programs that provide free sessions to in-network counselors. leverage this benefit if it is available.

Congrats on the baby, sorry you are dealing with this now. It is probably better to deal with these challenging conversations now. Once the baby comes, communication is critical. Marriage is difficult and takes time. Hope you understand what is best for your family, baby and your personal mental health.

Marriage counseling and a separate fun budget for each of you that you can spend how you want no questions asked. People suggesting divorce please stop. They have a baby coming and a marriage is hard work and takes effort. You donít give up that easy. Divorce is emotionally very painful.

Yes, talking about divorce is likely premature, but I see the reasons why it is being brought up. This poster is married to someone who is fundamentally immature, self-centered, and doesn’t seem to share many important values with his partner. That is shaky ground for forming a stable marriage. Adding a baby to the mix cranks up the stress 10x. Babies were hard on us and we had been together for a bazillion years, had very similar goals and values, and were very much on the same page financially.

I think that this is a desperate situation requiring big tools to try to repair. If there wasn’t a future baby in the mix I would advise making sure not to get pregnant. Water under the bridge so move to the next options. Absolutely mariage counseling as well as something like the peace university. If it were me I would also be doing everything I could to protect myself and my future baby financially from the childish impulses of this partner. How does he feel about the coming baby?

Yikes. Couples counseling maybe would help him open his eyes to his ridiculousness, but then again with his attitude, he may just think that the therapist is just unfairly taking your side. I would sit down with him and budget his $ and yours. If possible, set up direct deposit so you can manage the funds for joint expenses. I feel like separate finances can work depending on the couple, but it gets really tricky when you have a kid and their are variable kid expenses. It's easy to split the rent or mortgage, but if baby needs something, the parent paying for it will just be based on circumstance, probably. Good luck. Not a ton of advice, but just well wishes that you guys can work this out!

Marriage counseling and a separate fun budget for each of you that you can spend how you want no questions asked. People suggesting divorce please stop. They have a baby coming and a marriage is hard work and takes effort. You donít give up that easy. Divorce is emotionally very painful.

I agree with all of this. You don't necessarily need joint bank accounts, but having a joint budget would help you guys get on the same page about where your money is going each month. And having (ideally equal) fun money amounts would avoid a lot of the arguments about who bought what, or having to ask permission to buy something. If he wants $300 shoes, that's on him to save up the fun money for it.

He currently owes money to me, his parents, and his credit card, yet started a discussion last night about absolutely needing a $300 pair of shoes. This is after we had an argument last week about him buying almost $500 worth of clothes for himself. He got really worked up and pointed out that I bought stuff for myself last week and it isn't fair if I get to buy stuff for myself and he doesn't. The things I bought for "myself": three new bras because my pregnant breasts would no longer fit into my 32A cups, and fabric to make a quilt for our future baby. I also meet all my financial obligations and don't owe anyone money. He backtracked and said he would not buy the shoes until November after he pays back me and his parents. He then completely lost his temper and started yelling about since he has a job he should be able to buy nice things for himself and he is sick of always having to give me his money, and I'm too controlling. The money he "gives" me is to cover his portion of our joint expenses, which is significantly less than my portion. He acts like he his handing me over his hard earned cash which I then go blow on cocaine and booze, rather than contributing to our bills. (That was a joke, I don't do drugs). He then backtracked again saying he was only window shopping for the shoes, and he needs to window shop for things like cars and clothes and expensive golf equipment to make him feel better about his low salary and poor financial lot in life, which he thinks is everyone's fault but his own. His $50k student loan - he truly believes this is the fault of the banks and society, not him choosing to take out excessive loans to go to school out of town and not working to help pay for school the whole time he was there.

His mother is 100% the architect of this problem and continues to propagate it. He will probably tell her about our argument and how mean and horrible I am thinking he doesn't deserve to buy $300 shoes with his hard earned money. She will then most likely go and buy him the shoes because of course her poor baby needs new shoes for his poor feet. They are not overly well off and I suspect they finance their lifestyle with credit cards. He has told me in the past he thinks it is "normal" to carry a balance on a credit card. I've been trying unsuccesfully to beat this notion out of his head for the last few years. Part of the issue is his feeling of entitlement. He likes to watch youtubers and then feels that he is entitled to own anything and everything they have. He doesn't have a car - he drives one of his parents' cars, and sooks that he wants a brand new SUV and with the two degrees he has, he should be driving a $40,000 SUV. He feels it is beneath him to drive a beater and he can't afford anything else so he has to drive his parents. My first two cars were old beater honda civics that I paid cash for - while making a lot more money than he does now.

Please help. How do I get through to him that we are a team and in this together? That we need to be saving money for the baby, not blowing it on wants. How do I teach him financial responsibility? How do I get him to stop feeling so entitled to material things because people on youtube have them? And how do I communicate this in an effective way? I'm an engineer with horrible communication skills. I deal best in logic and math, not emotions. I can't empathize with his feelings of frustration with his lot in life, or wanting material things to make him feel good about himself, because I don't have those types of feelings. He likes to claim that I don't have any feelings, which isn't true.

This probably isn't the feedback that you want but... As someone approximately two years further along in life with a similar income disparity and MIL, I would honestly divorce him now. I wish I had done it then. Yes, even pregnant. Feel free to PM me if you would like.

I would recommend marriage counseling because there are no magic words that can fix the issue. I am sorry you are having to deal with this.

Agreed.

Wow, OP. This sounds crazy. I'm so sorry you are dealing with this situation, and being pregnant on top... I'd tell you to pour yourself a stiff drink but... we don't do that in US while pregnant.

What are your plans for childcare once the baby arrives? What about leave and FMLA? I'd start writing this stuff down so he can see it. Maybe he can be a SAHD but that is not going to fix the resentment he feels. Since I live in a place where infant care costs $2500/month, you need to have a budget and be able to see where your money is going to go in the future.

Marriage counseling and a separate fun budget for each of you that you can spend how you want no questions asked. People suggesting divorce please stop. They have a baby coming and a marriage is hard work and takes effort. You donít give up that easy. Divorce is emotionally very painful.

I suspect people are going there because consciously or unconsciously, the readers are picking up that all of John Gottman's "Four Horsemen of the (Marriage) Apocalypse" (contempt, criticism, stonewalling and defensiveness) are, between the two of them, present in the way the OP and her husband talk to and about each other. My understanding is that those are really hard to come back from even with a lot of work, and from what we are hearing here, it's uncertain about whether the couple would want to put in that much work. Maybe the place to start would be individual counseling for the OP to discuss what marital counseling realistically can and cannot accomplish, so she can think through what her next steps should be. Maybe something like separate finances or Financial Peace University would be effective, or maybe the deep-seated differences are too difficult to overcome and the best gift they can give a baby is two parents peacefully co-parenting from separate houses.

I had similar problems in my marriage. My advice is to set x% of each income in joint account, and 100-x% in individual accounts. Individual accounts are for the discretionary spending of the individual. Then list what much come out of discretionary spending - clothes, personal toiletries, restaurant eating, vacations, etc., and what come out of joint - regular bills, groceries, gas, retirement savings, college savings, etc. The X of each individual can be whatever you agree to, but I think you should do a flat %. Your extra $$ will fund more of your life together now, but his will grow over time. At the same time his discretionary will be less, so he'll have incentive to grow his income for himself. You can then choose, if you like, to use your extra discretionary to add to your retirememnt savings, college savings, debt repayment, etc.

Post that list of what is individual vs joint spending and revisit it as needed. Also no credit cards -- if you/he can't pay them off every month you shouldn't be using them.

But I would also give a +1 for divorce -- your man sounds far worse than mine and if I had to do it again I would not. We tried pretty much every suggestion given in this thread, and found the one I wrote worked best. Dealing with my own resentment and judgement of what he spends is still my biggest issue.

At this point, definitely marriage counseling. You guys have entered a rut in which you act like the parent because he can't be trusted to handle his money, and so he rebels, which is what all right-thinking kids do when they reach a certain age. You need to break that pattern before you can move forward.

I would also suggest you look closely for your own contribution to this problem, because the only way to break habits is to change the way you react (as you don't control someone else). Example: you knew he was spendy when you married him, right? So part of the current issue is your belief/presumption that he would change his ways after marriage. This is a common view among frugal people, btw -- what you are doing seems so logical and right that it is inconceivable that someone else, once exposed to the rightness of that path, would not immediately see the light and jump on board. Example: you guys agreed to a proportional split of the bills, but you still criticize him for how he spends the rest of his money. WTF? The whole point of the proportional split was so he would pay his fair share, right? So if he pays that share, why is it your business to control what he does with the rest? Sure, you lent him money, and you have every right to be angry if he is going to spend more before paying you back, but the fix for that is just not to lend him money -- not to lend him money and kvetch about how he manages the payoff.

The fundamental issue here is that he has a very specific view of what money is for, and you have a very different one -- and you both believe your view is right. But the reality is that neither of you is "right" -- there is no such thing as an objective "right." The first step to moving past your impasse is to acknowledge that both of you are grown-ass adults, and you both have equal rights to spend your money however you see fit. Your job as a couple is to figure out how to make sure you meet your responsibilities to each other and to the baby, while still getting each of you as much of what you want as you can manage.

I am going to say that again, because it was hard as hell for me, and so I am going to assume it is equally hard for you: you are not "right," and he is not "wrong." You are both equal adults, with an equal right and ability to make your own financial decisions.

So: if you approach it from that angle, can you see why he is angry and frustrated? Everything you say, everything you do, is telling him that he is wrong, and that he needs to give up everything that he wants to meet your approval -- and then even when he tries to meet you partway, you jump on him. How would you respond in that situation? How would you feel if every time you deposited something in savings, he was berating you because you could be using it for XYZ?

The way you get through this is to stop talking logic. Yes, btw, you are 100% right that he is being stupid and immature and consumerist -- I am actually 100% on your side here. But you have to completely ignore that if you want to make progress. He is being stupid with his money not because he doesn't know any better, but because it meets some kind of emotional need. And you are saving and being frugal because it meets some kind of emotional need. So what are those needs on both sides? Sit down with a bottle of wine -- or a few, over several weeks -- and start talking about all your hopes and fears. Ask him how he feels when he buys a $300 pair of shoes. Like it or not, our society places a lot of pressure on men to be the breadwinner and earn a lot of money. Yes, it is stupid and sexist and retrograde -- but if he feels "less than" because he only makes $30K, it's still very real to him, and so it is a "real" need of his that you guys together have to learn how to meet. What he is hearing from you now is that his feelings are stupid and not worth anything. What he needs to hear is that you value him, and it's important that he be happy, and you want to figure out some way for him to get as much of what he needs as you guys can afford.

Please also note that this is the beginning of the discussion, not the end of it. The end goal is for him to realize that all that consumerist stuff is bullshit, and that the welfare of his wife and itty bitty baby is the most important thing, and that he'd rather have freedom and time with you guys than all the "stuff" in the world. But you are not the one who can convince him of that -- he has to see it for himself. And he can't do that while you guys are so locked into your positions, feeling defensive and attacked. If you open up about your own fears -- fear of poverty, maybe? Feel of that insecurity of what happens if the job goes away, or if there isn't enough money in the account to cover a medical bill, or whatever -- then your vulnerability can help him let his guard down, so that he then can be strong for you instead of strong against you. And once you guys have learned to let your guard down and talk fears and insecurities, you can also talk hopes and dreams -- spending time together, spending time with the kid(s), not working your whole life, ditching it all to travel in a van -- whatever it is that you guys dream of, what you're working for.

Only at this point can you start talking numbers. This is when you can look at where your money is going, and whether those purchases are taking you closer to your big goals or further away from them. And then you negotiate how much you can both put toward current wants and how much should be dedicated towards future wants.

Good luck. You have a hard road here, but it can be done if both of you are willing.

(Also, please note that if he were posting here I would be ripping him a complete new asshole, because IMO he is being ridiculous and immature and stupid and all sorts of "horrible spouse." But he isn't writing in -- you are. And telling you that he's being stupid only doubles down on where you are now -- the lesson for you is to try to figure out how to move past that and hear the "why" behind the stupidity.).

Marriage counseling and a separate fun budget for each of you that you can spend how you want no questions asked. People suggesting divorce please stop. They have a baby coming and a marriage is hard work and takes effort. You donít give up that easy. Divorce is emotionally very painful.

I agree with all of this. You don't necessarily need joint bank accounts, but having a joint budget would help you guys get on the same page about where your money is going each month. And having (ideally equal) fun money amounts would avoid a lot of the arguments about who bought what, or having to ask permission to buy something. If he wants $300 shoes, that's on him to save up the fun money for it.

I was going to say something very similar.....you need to come up with an agreed upon budget. I'm much older than you and further down my financial path, but 20 years ago, DH came into the relationship with no assets, and liked to spend up to and a little past his income (albeit, not as extreme as your spouse). I took over all the financial details of life, and paid all the bills (also made more than double what he did), but he agreed to a $ figure of 'free spending'.....and that worked for us.....I had on-line access to his bank account, I moved money around as needed and he knew he had $X of cash every two weeks on payday....The other thing that really helped him, was understanding the difference between 'need' and 'want'. He may 'need' new shoes', he 'wants' the $300 pair. I always explained to him that you get no joy from getting a need, but you can get joy out of a want. I need to eat food, I want sushi.

But you're in a tough spot, and your income is going to go down when the baby comes, and expenses are going to go way up once the baby is in care. You're in my thoughts. It's going to be tough if he isn't willing to man up.

I'm not defending his behaviour.....but you do need to find a way to have a dialogue about it, not a fight. A counselor may help with figuring out how to do that.

The fundamental issue here is that he has a very specific view of what money is for, and you have a very different one -- and you both believe your view is right. But the reality is that neither of you is "right" -- there is no such thing as an objective "right." The first step to moving past your impasse is to acknowledge that both of you are grown-ass adults, and you both have equal rights to spend your money however you see fit. Your job as a couple is to figure out how to make sure you meet your responsibilities to each other and to the baby, while still getting each of you as much of what you want as you can manage.

As with many threads on this forum, we are at a point where groupthink is starting to take hold and things are being over-simplified. So OP, approach the "get divorced now" advice in this thread with caution.

I quoted the above from Laura33 because I believe it's incredibly insightful, and something you should consider. People on here have strong, strong, strong opinions about money, but those aren't necessarily objectively correct. Money is a crazy thing that can be used for a lot of different material items or experiences. I'm of the belief that spouses should work jointly towards big picture goals while also being able to be independent enough to do their own thing.

While I don't agree with his spending choices, I think it's important to understand where his head his at in all this. I think many people -- including most people I know -- spend everything they have when they first get their career going. It's the first time they have money to burn, and they're going to burn it. In fact, before discovering the FIRE concept, I was probably somewhat in that camp.

Another thing -- I think it's important to understand what his passions are and let him run with it (to a reasonable degree). Ten years ago, my wife would have laughed you out the door if you told her that her eventual husband would spend $1,000 a year going to sporting events. But that's my thing, and I enjoy it, and she let's me have fun with it. Maybe you need to sit down with your spouse and try and understand why he wants to spend on what he's spending on.

I think it's a bit unfortunate that you and your spouse didn't square all this up before getting married. But it is what it is -- I'm sure my wife and I have some unknown disagreement brewing that we will have to work through. My guess is that it's something on how to raise kids, how to discipline, something like that. One mild one, now that she's pregnant -- she's been frustrated how I haven't taken on the "how to be a dad" literature. So I ordered two books on Amazon, I'm reading a chapter every night, and I'm doing my part.

Speaking of literature, it was me providing my wife with personal finance literature that really made us get on board. She used to spend most of her income and did a decent job saving, but I bought 3-4 books, read them, told her they were good, and it changed the way she thought about money.

So back to you, I think it's important for you to be proactive about this. Really set forth your goals -- both personally and in your relationship. How much do you want saved by insert X age (this was a goal for me)? When do you want to retire? And what are you going to do to accomplish all this?

Also, what about counseling? It's not out of bounds to consider -- with a kid on the way, I would try to work on this issue. I agree with others that the counselor should be able to aid with this dialogue, and will probably help both of you achieve a better understanding of your spouse.

And lastly, think about why you married him the first place. I'm sure it's a combination of attraction and personality that made you feel like you wanted to spend the rest of your life with him. Don't lose sight of that.

I had similar problems in my marriage. My advice is to set x% of each income in joint account, and 100-x% in individual accounts. Individual accounts are for the discretionary spending of the individual. Then list what much come out of discretionary spending - clothes, personal toiletries, restaurant eating, vacations, etc., and what come out of joint - regular bills, groceries, gas, retirement savings, college savings, etc. The X of each individual can be whatever you agree to, but I think you should do a flat %. Your extra $$ will fund more of your life together now, but his will grow over time. At the same time his discretionary will be less, so he'll have incentive to grow his income for himself. You can then choose, if you like, to use your extra discretionary to add to your retirememnt savings, college savings, debt repayment, etc.

Post that list of what is individual vs joint spending and revisit it as needed. Also no credit cards -- if you/he can't pay them off every month you shouldn't be using them.

But I would also give a +1 for divorce -- your man sounds far worse than mine and if I had to do it again I would not. We tried pretty much every suggestion given in this thread, and found the one I wrote worked best. Dealing with my own resentment and judgement of what he spends is still my biggest issue.

A huge issue I see with this approach is that he will just supplement his discretionary spendings with credit cards and other loans. And as married couple, she will be responsible for this debt. Other than counseling and divorce I dont have any suggestions. But as someone who's been there done that a divorced 3 years ago I see red flags.

Normally I agree with Laura33 but not here. The red flags are everywhere. He's spoiled and manipulative. He shows zero interest in changing and the wife is just another source of money for him to spend. See if he will go to counseling and sit down with you for the discussions Laura33 and others suggest. If not, he is not likely to change, and it may be time to minimize the damage and move on.

Normally I agree with Laura33 but not here. The red flags are everywhere. He's spoiled and manipulative. He shows zero interest in changing and the wife is just another source of money for him to spend. See if he will go to counseling and sit down with you for the discussions Laura33 and others suggest. If not, he is not likely to change, and it may be time to minimize the damage and move on.

+1. I know we're just seeing her side, but spending problems is one thing. Disrespect for her is another.

... has the TV on constantly (even when we are sleeping, which was another hard compromise for me).

i got this far. this guy doesn't care for you at all and in your shoes i would just get a divorce now, move across the country (or far enough you won't run into him around town) so you won't have to see him and collect the measly child support he can provide. he's not worth your time, and any advice you get here will do nothing but make you want to leave him more.

Breton18--How far along in the pregnancy are you? I would strongly consider an abortion. Not a great plan to bring a child into an unstable marriage. You can always get pregnant again once you've gotten this relationship (or the next one) to a healthy place.

Normally I agree with Laura33 but not here. The red flags are everywhere. He's spoiled and manipulative. He shows zero interest in changing and the wife is just another source of money for him to spend. See if he will go to counseling and sit down with you for the discussions Laura33 and others suggest. If not, he is not likely to change, and it may be time to minimize the damage and move on.

+1. I know we're just seeing her side, but spending problems is one thing. Disrespect for her is another.

Where's the disrespect? I see a massive disagreement about how to handle the money, and a lot of frustration on both sides, but I don't see him disrespecting her. At least not any more than she clearly does not respect him. (Admittedly, her DH is not exactly earning respect by acting like a toddler; but at the same time, it would never occur to me to complain about the financial impacts of how long my DH spends in the shower or how much food he eats). I'm just not seeing a lot of respect shining through on either side.

But let me rephrase my advice. OP: If he were your boyfriend, I would advise you to ditch him, because your money styles are so different. If you were newlywed DINKs, I would still probably advise you to ditch him for that same reason. But you have a baby on the way, which is a reason to see if you guys can find a way through this before calling it quits -- and the fact that you are here instead of in a divorce lawyer's office suggests that you want to find a way through this if you can.

So if your goal is to try to find a way through, do what I said above. You cannot "make" him see you as a team if he does not already -- but you also should not interpret his desire for more "stuff" as a signal that he doesn't see you as a team. Also: IME, my DH telling me that his approach is "logical" will send me through the roof, because it implies to me that he thinks I'm so stupid I can't see something that is blatantly obvious. So be careful about how you present yourself to him -- his strong emotional reaction suggests he might be inferring some of that.

OTOH, if you see a marriage counselor, things don't improve, and you decide to call it quits, I don't think there is a single person here who would criticize that decision. It's hard to stay married to a 3-year-old.

@ReadySetMillionaire -- your "too bad you didn't figure this out before getting married" comment struck me, because I made the same mistake. I think it comes down to the unspoken assumptions you go into a marriage with -- there are certain things you just assume everyone does, because they are so obviously right and logical, and so you are just flat-out stunned when you discover that your spouse doesn't do things that way and doesn't even think you have to. That was me and my DH with money: I was much more like the OP here, and DH was a much-more-mature version of her DH (though at least he had only $3K CC debt and a work ethic). It literally never occurred to me that he wouldn't handle money my way -- because I was Right, because that's the way it should be done, and because he was a smart, logical guy and so would figure that out as soon as I explained it all to him. Umm, yeah, didn't quite work out that way. Silly man thought money was to be spent on toys, and if he ever needed more money to pay for said toys, he'd just go work more. And he didn't understand why I got so royally pissed off when he blew $120 on Oakleys -- I mean, we had the money, so what was my problem? (A: they were so unnecessary! Walgreens has sunglesses for $10 -- and the Oakleys weren't even polarized!)

So the tl;dr is that OP shouldn't kick herself for not having worked through this before -- because even if the signs were clear and it was a mistake on her part, there's really no use beating yourself up about it now. The question now is just deciding if the relationship is worth saving, and if so figuring out the best way to go about that.

Normally I agree with Laura33 but not here. The red flags are everywhere. He's spoiled and manipulative. He shows zero interest in changing and the wife is just another source of money for him to spend. See if he will go to counseling and sit down with you for the discussions Laura33 and others suggest. If not, he is not likely to change, and it may be time to minimize the damage and move on.[/quote

I was about to say the same thing. He IS wrong. How can he afford $300 shoes and a $40,000 car on his salary? Can't. So he expects his wife to pony up because he "deserves" it and it will help him feel successful. That's just wrong.Also, this is not about money, it's about his attitude and expectations. It won't matter how the money is divided or whether he gets fun money, because his expectations are out of line. Get to the bottom of why he feels so entitled and so bad about himself without all the fancy stuff and maybe there's a chance of him waking up and the marriage working. Otherwise, I would hold up little hope. Sorry.

Marriage counseling and a separate fun budget for each of you that you can spend how you want no questions asked. People suggesting divorce please stop. They have a baby coming and a marriage is hard work and takes effort. You donít give up that easy. Divorce is emotionally very painful.

+1 on this one

Quote

He then completely lost his temper and started yelling about since he has a job he should be able to buy nice things for himself and he is sick of always having to give me his money, and I'm too controlling.

This comment struck me. Because: I remember a coworker with 4 kids who was having money problems. He didn't talk about them much but one day mentioned his CC debt and said "but how can I tell my wife to stop shopping and buying things - she works hard for her money." I said simply "because you cannot afford them".

I agree (generally) with Laura33 also - EXCEPT (and I'm not in your budget here), if he is SPENDING more than he makes, then yeah - that's a "wrong".

So - I wouldn't jump straight to divorce, but to counseling. And sometimes just having "fun money" can really help. No judgment.

It sounds like, however, that you haven't sat down and worked on a budget. I mean, if he's going to say that, above - who does he think is paying the bills? Rent/mortgage, food, etc. Does he pay his own bills? Does he see the bills?

What makes me nervous, a bit, is this attitude because - my mom was the one who "paid the bills", but for much of her married life, she didn't make any money. For 13 years, she was a SAHP who had to get blood out of a stone, and she got yelled at if she did the budget wrong. After a divorce, she was happy. Then she remarried to a lovely man who made the money and handed her the bills. But he acted as if he were single.

He had this category for his animals, and that category for trips, and another category for his hobbies - and there wasn't enough money coming in to cover them all. My mother would get SOOO stressed about it, and I kept telling her "hand over the check book! He has to do it himself!" Well, he has it figured out now, because she died many years ago. But it was ridiculous - he got to see ALL of the income as "spendable" but had lost COMPLETE connection with reality on actual bills. Because he didn't see them.

Instead of making him pay "you" for his portion. Make him pay the actual bill. If you are at 25/75 split, make him pay every fourth month. Or have him actually pay 1/4 of the bill out of his account, and you pay 3/4 out of yours.

I have been exactly where you are. In fact, I currently make about 5-6 times what my DH makes. We've been married almost 18 years. We did the whole separate accounts thing for several years primarily because he was not great at controlling his spending and I didn't want to have my financial goals shot to hell because of it. We did that for about 3-5 years and probably fought about money at least once a week. I hated having to "ask" him for money for his portion of the bills. Even though I was paying a much larger portion, he'd always get salty as if I shouldn't make him pay anything. I resented him greatly for that. Turns out that wasn't really what he was thinking and the reality is, I was such a control freak I didn't want to take the leap and fully trust him with "my" money. Anyway, after we had our DD, the whole separate account thing really caused issues. I felt like I was paying for everything for our DD. The fights ramped up until finally, one day, I just said "Screw it! Let's just put it all in one account." That was the smartest decision I made. It really changed the whole dynamic between us at the time. We were functioning as a team instead of two separate cogs. Did he still spend on some things I didn't exactly like? Sure . . . but to my surprise, he tamed things a little. We kind of met in the middle. I loosened up a bit and he tightened the reins a bit.

I understand your reasoning for separate accounts/finances. However, the amount of fights and sleepless nights that caused were not worth it in the end. I had to learn to meet my DH in the middle. I'm glad I did because he ultimately surprised me and things have worked out just fine. I can't remember the last time we had a money fight.

I was in your shoes a few years ago. The man I was married to depleted my savings, ruined my credit and treated me like his personal ATM. I worked hard to support him and two babies while he barely worked and spent my money on shoes, toys for himself, gifts for his girlfriends etc. I struggled to pay rent, daycare (he refused to be a SAHD) despite always being underemployed. I'd be scared to check my account because even after pay day it could be empty or worse overdrawn because of him.

I stayed for far too long. He was never going to change but I stayed out of a false sense of duty. My kids were 2 and 3 when I finally walked away from the financial and other forms of abuse. I've never looked back. I'm thriving!

Edited to add: feel free to message me if you want/need someone to talk to.

I find the "divorce him" posts a little disturbing. To me, this sounds like the growing pains of a relatively new marriage. It takes time and effort and introspection to work through these issues but, is it impossible? Heck no! Learn from one another . . . open up to one another . . . find a compromise. Maybe eventually you will come to the conclusion that you've tried all those things and you can't be happy together. I don't think you are at that point.

This is an opportunity for you BOTH to grow as a couple and learn how to resolve conflict. I don't think throwing in the towel at this point is warranted.

I find the "divorce him" posts a little disturbing. To me, this sounds like the growing pains of a relatively new marriage. It takes time and effort and introspection to work through these issues but, is it impossible? Heck no! Learn from one another . . . open up to one another . . . find a compromise. Maybe eventually you will come to the conclusion that you've tried all those things and you can't be happy together. I don't think you are at that point.

This is an opportunity for you BOTH to grow as a couple and learn how to resolve conflict. I don't think throwing in the towel at this point is warranted.

Interesting perspective. Did you marry young by chance? To me, their differences seem quite fundamental. Short-term vs long-term thinking, selfish vs bigger picture thinking, etc. Maybe I just have that opinion because my husband and I sorted out things like who was going to do the laundry and buy groceries when we got married.

It is true though that our biggest issue has always been communication. I think we communicate well overall, but we have learned some tough lessons about how to speak up when we don’t like something or to voice unspoken assumptions and differences stemming from our upbringings. It sounds like OP and spouse need to spend some serious time doing that.

I feel terrible for you being pregnant and just realizing what a tool he is. You seem to be a very sensible person. I would cut my losses now and leave the marriage as it seems this is a HUGE deal for you. It won't get better.

I think this is your best choice. I was in a similar situation (also an engineer thankfully). I cut my losses (wasn't just financial) and left the marriage. The best thing I did for myself and our kid (who he does not see by his choice).